AnnaLee Saxenian

Current Research

AnnaLee Saxenian has made a career of studying regional economics and the conditions under which people, ideas, and geographies combine and connect into hubs of economic activity. She has examined the development of Silicon Valley and its domestic counterparts, as well as the growth of global networks linking Silicon Valley to dynamic regions in Asia and beyond. More recent projects have focused on the development of the information technology industries in Finland.

Education

Biography

AnnaLee Saxenian (Anno) is professor and dean of UC Berkeley's School of Information and has a joint faculty appointment with the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her latest book, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 2006) explores how and why immigrant engineers from Silicon Valley are transferring their technology entrepreneurship to emerging regions in their home countries—Taiwan, Israel, China and India in particular—and launching companies far from established centers of skill and technology. The "brain drain," she argues, has now become "brain circulation" — a powerful economic force for the development of formerly peripheral regions that is sparking profound transformations in the global economy. Saxenian is also author of the widely acclaimed Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Harvard University Press, 1994). Other publications include Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs (Public Policy Institute of California, 1999), and Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley (PPIC, 2002). She holds a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, a master's in regional planning from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in economics from Williams College.

Something few people know about you?
I have two boys, Robbie, who is 17 years old and an awesome rugby player, and Jamie, who is 21, an avid photographer and fluent in Mandarin. You can check out his photos at http://www.wix.com/abjam77/Jamie-Manley-Photography.

What keeps you up at night?
Trying to figure out how we'll all manage to fit in South Hall five years from now!